Nixon signed too much liberal legislation of note, betrayed the hawks too much, and was just too of a bastard to be praised by many people upon full examination of his presidency. Oh, we can say that about Reagan all the live long day, of course. Did Reagan needlessly extend a war for four years to win re-election? Did Reagan enact policies with the pure intent of temporarily boosting the economy past his re-election and deciding he'd sort it out later? And detente has too much of a controversial past, what with the easily stated argument that it accomplished really nothing. Sure, we can dress up his presidency like folks in my party do with Reagan's, but I think on the whole Reagan's was much better than Nixon's and more accomplished. A number of GOPer's might try to harken back to the 1970's when the GOP was in power, but it'd be even more pathetic than the Reagan nostalgia we have today.